Search engine popularity - June 2006

The latest monthly figures from Comcast show that 44.7% of the 6.4 billion searches in the US in June were done on Google. The other main engines have lost 'share of search' to Google by a few percentage points over the last year as you can see in the table.

The total number of searches is down about 6% from May 2006 which Comcast think is a seasonal effect. The second quarter of 2006 saw about a third more searches (20 billion) than the same period in 2005.

The figures come from a panel of 2 million consumers worldwide whose searches are tracked by Comscore. So their habits may be influenced by their knowledge of being watched. Even so, we think the trend is valid.

Significance

Searching is becoming more and more the ingrained in the habits of internet users. As the main search engines compete for users by offering better relevancy, convenience and tools, advertising on search engines or optimising webpages is an essential activity.